General approaches to maintain staffing.

General approaches to maintain staffing.

Barby:

What are the three general approaches recommended by the American Nurses Association (2017) to maintain sufficient staffing?

The American Nurses Association recommends three general approaches to maintain staffing. The first approach is that the association requires healthcare setups to have a team of nurses to create a staffing committee. The committee would ensure that they create a staffing plan that reflects the staff nurses’ needs, skills, and experience (Griffiths et al., 2020). The second approach is the need to disclose the facilities’ staffing levels to the public and regulatory body to create awareness when staffing level is low. The last one requires legislation of specific nurse-to-patient ratios. The ratio mandated by the legislators would facilitate staffing by filling up the gaps created if the nurse-patient ratio is not met.

Should LPNs be counted to meet minimum mandatory staffing ratios?

Licensed practical nurses can provide primary patient care; hence, the practical nurse should be included by the staffing committee in the mandatory ratio accompanying registered nurses during an understaffing crisis (Melrose et al., 2019). They would help reduce workload by sharing work with the available registered nurse. Moreover, an experienced licensed practical nurse is more skilled and knowledgeable on the hospital routines, and quality caregiving than new and less experienced registered nurses; hence, licensed practical nurses should be included in mandatory staffing when understaffing occurs in the hospital.

Analyze what proponents and critics say about whether mandatory minimum staffing ratios are needed.

Proponents and critics support the idea of maintaining a mandatory nurse-to-patient ratio as it increases positive patient outcomes. However, critics suggest that if the mandatory nurse-patient is imposed nationally, it will increase the cost of care with no guarantees for positive patient outcomes after hospitalization (Carthon et al., 2019). Also, the cost that comes with adding more registered nurses to satisfy the ratios would not be offset by the increased care cost, hence creating mandates that would not be fulfilled. Alternatively, the proponents and critics suggest creating market-based incentives to healthcare facilities to optimize nurse staffing levels.